The next book in the Scandalous Miss Brightwells is here!

I’m very excited to tell you about The Honourable Fortune Hunter which I’ve been feverishly writing during this lockdown.

It actually started out as quite another book – Five Golden Flings – which is my inclusion in our fabulous Christmas Box Set I’m doing with 11 other well-known historical romance authors.

However, I just couldn’t get the ‘five flings’ thing to work. My heroine Lizzy was having none of it. No, she had two fortune hunters dangling after her; so I just decided to keep writing to see where the story went.

When I reached the second to last chapter, I still couldn’t decide how this story was going to resolve itself. If you’ve read my other work, I like to have an unexpected twist at the end, and I’ve discovered that the best way to make this work so as not to appear contrived, is to go back to the beginning of my story, and edit.

This enables me to get to know my characters better. For example, in this story, Lizzy’s awful benefactress, Mrs Hodge, is selling Lizzy off to a fortune Hunter in exchange for some of Lizzy’s fortune. But why would she do this?

And my lovely hero could marry Lizzy. Except, if he’s to retain the ‘honourable’ moniker, he can’t.

I just didn’t know why not, though, because Theo wasn’t revealing his secrets.

Now I’m a third of the way through editing and very confident I can pull off an ending that works.

Ah, but it’s the unexpected plot twists and surprise in an intrigue-filled, humorous Regency romance like this one that really makes me a happy writer.

And who cares that I’m not allowed to leave my house and see other people during this lock-down?

I have my wonderful Theor McAlister and vibrant Lizzy Scott to lead me down rabbit holes and keep me entertained!

I hope you are all staying well and not suffering too much during these strange and difficult times.

And if you want to check out the blurb or get pre-order The Honourable Fortune Hunter, which will be released on July 7, you can do here at a discount, since the price will go up after July 7.